


trying to rinse fire out

by impossibletruths



Series: until the dawn [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Missing Scene, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 19:52:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17835092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossibletruths/pseuds/impossibletruths
Summary: Sometimes her temper gets the better of her. The aftermath is always the worst of it.





	trying to rinse fire out

**Author's Note:**

> for the prompt _vesper + embers_. title from "this fire" by ben rosenbush & the brighton. originally posted to [tumblr](https://cityandking.tumblr.com/post/173756206127/trying-to-rinse-fire-out)

Dorian must have pulled the short straw; he is the one to track her down, squirreled way up on the highest battlements. She hears him come clattering up the ladder, all buckles and frills and newly smug with the coming summer. She braces her hands against the rough lip of the wall, warm in the late afternoon sun, and stares out at the mountains, waiting.

“Charming view,” he says behind her, and sounds as though he means it. The warmer months agree with him; she hadn’t even realized he could be in such good moods until Varric started complaining that it was getting too damned hot. Most days it is endearing; today it is another needling irritation. “Not too sure about the climb.”

“How bad is it?” she asks, wound too tightly for pleasantries. His shoes tap against the stone behind her, and then he is at her side, arms folded across his chest. He glances at her, then back to the mountains. The breeze ruffles her hair, tugs at her braid. It feels good against the back of her neck. Refreshing, almost.

He hesitates only a moment. “The Ambassador is smoothing things over.”

His voice rings out smooth and easy, but the hesitation tells her enough. She presses a hand against her eyes. “Dammit.”

“There now,” he says, sympathetic. “It could be worse.”

“It could always be worse,” she tells him, pushing her hair back from her face and shifting slightly to look at him, all expressive eyebrows. “That doesn’t make it any better.”

He winces. “Perhaps not.”

Vesper sighs. It is easier to look at things with a clear head now that her anger has begun to fade, and the picture left behind is not particularly comforting. “The mistake was mine,” she says. “I should be the one to make it right.”

“I’m not entirely sure you want to try your luck right now.”

That is besides the point and he knows it, but she accepts his warning for what it is. She presses her hands back against the parapet and resists the urge to punch something. Her temper has done her no kindnesses today; all she will get now is bruised knuckles.

Though that does seem rather fitting for the whole situation.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Dorian says suddenly, “Cullen did suggest he’d do much the same.”

“I’m not certain the Commander’s is the advice to take in this situation.”

“Come now, that’s no way to speak of our glorious general.”

That tugs the slightest smile to her face, and Dorian’s lip twists in response. She sighs and tucks trailing strands of her hair behind one ear and reaches for a steadiness she cannot seem to grasp

“Dorian,” she says with all the gentleness she can muster, “I do appreciate this, but I’d rather you left me alone.”

He sighs, and the sound catches the frayed edges of her temper. “You wound me, my friend. I only came to see if you were alright.”

“And it was kind of you to do so, but I’m fine.” She speaks with a patience she doesn’t quite feel.

“I don’t think––”

“I don’t need watching,” she says, firm, and watches something behind his eyes settle. Her mouth twists into a thin smile, and the faded anger in her chest sparks again. “Ah.”

“It isn’t like that, you know.”

“Isn’t it?” she returns. “Who asked? Leliana? Cassandra?”

He stares at her another long moment, and sighs. “Josephine.”

Something hot and bright flares in her chest, and she clamps it down tight as she speaks through thinned lips. “You may inform the Ambassador that I have successfully sequestered myself where I shall cause no more harm until she is content. I’m certain she’ll be glad to know I’m out of the way.”

“You know that isn’t how she meant it,” says Dorian, and she does, she knows it is not distrust on Josephine’s part, but. Well. It has been a bad day, and her temper is sparking, and she speaks without thinking.

“I don’t care how she meant it,” Vesper snaps. “I am not some Circle apprentice who needs to be watched every moment of the day. I am happy to stay out of things so long as it is needed, but please do me the common decency of not being my guardsman.”

He stares at her, stares long enough to know her words have hurt him, and then inclines his head ever so slightly. The formality of it catches somewhere beneath her gut, shame welling in with the flaring anger. She bites down on it until it aches, and opens her mouth to speak. He beats her to it.

“I’ll be downstairs,” he says, clipped, usual airiness gone from his voice. “Should you need anything.”

And then he is gone, before she can so much as conjure the words to apologize. She stares after him for a moment, then smacks her open palm against the stone of the parapet. It stings.

“Fuck!”

It does not carry as far as she would like; the breeze catches the sound and the cloudless late spring sky swallows it whole. The mountains stare down at her without a response. She folds her hands tight around the lip of the wall and leans her weight forward, bracing herself there as she drops her head. The sun beats down against her back as it sinks towards the earth. Everything is too hot, too brittle. Catching.

“Fuck,” she repeats, quieter. Here is something she hoped to avoid, another hurt to smooth over later. When will she learn to keep her fucking mouth shut.

She hits her hand against the wall again, and lets the stinging of her scraped palm drag her back to the present, and then turns around, sliding down to sit with her back pressed against the warm stone. The uneven crevices catch against the back of her shirt as she goes, and when she tilts her head to thump back against the stone it tugs on her hair too. She ignores it, closes her eyes to the open sky and the mountains like teeth reaching upward toward it and wishes for a moment it might all swallow her whole.

Then she wouldn’t have to deal with this  _shit_.

She stews a moment longer, then takes a deep breath. The air smells dusty even this high up, and soft with heat. If this is what things are like now, they will likely only grow worse as the season changes. And here she thought so high in the mountains they would have winter year-round. The prospect of warm days again soothes something within her. Hot and humid summers carry something of home. At the very least it will give everyone something new to complain about.

It is such a small, odd thought that it tugs her away from her low-burning irritation. She breathes again, steady. She should not have lost her temper, but that is done already, and she cannot undo it. And the poorly veiled suggestion that the blame for this dragging war lay at her feet… well. The Orlesians are not the only ones who do not want to see this conflict stretch on so long, but no matter how long ago the Conclave was, the Inquisition can only do so much. Not when the Chantry pays only lip service in aid and Ferelden is infuriatingly slow to route out extremists sheltering in the countryside, and Orlais is embroiled in its own dragging civil war, the hypocrites. 

Truly it is a marvel the whole of Thedas is not in ruins. Vesper feels they have been holding back the floodwaters with nothing but twigs and tack.

And tact, she supposes. She owes Josephine an apology. She owes them all apologies; she should be better than this. Maker knows she has stood at the head of the mess long enough to know how to keep hers better. But by Andraste, she hates politics.

She rubs a hand over her eyes and drags it down her face, and pushes herself to her feet. She does not quite feel ready to go back down and face everyone, but she is done feeling sorry for herself.

To give her hands something to do, she tugs free her hair tie and combs through her braid, leaving her hair lying loose over her shoulder, and carefully gathers it to braid back again. She stares out over the wall as she does it, and from all the way up here she can see the patterns of people moving through the courtyards below. None of them think to look up. She might well be invisible.

She takes her time with her hair, and only when it is neatly tied off again and pinned up does she let her thoughts return to the moment. She breathes, deep and steady, and stares out at the valley, painted red and gold as the sun slips below the jagged mountains. She has spent enough time hiding. She has work to do.

Dorian, true to his word, waits at the bottom of the stairs. Bull has joined him, the two of them snapping back and forth, and leaning far too close together for it to be only friendly banter. Vesper takes deliberate care to make noise as she descends, and by the time she reaches them they occupy their own spaces again.

“How you doin’, boss?” Bull asks in his low rumble. She smiles, a little thin and a little frail, but honest.

“Well enough,” she says. Dorian watches her with dark eyes. It takes her a moment to find her voice. “I owe you an apology.”

“The mighty Inquisitor, apologizing to me? What a thought.”

“Dorian,” Bull rumbles, but Vesper puts a hand out. The mess is hers; she will fix it as best she can.

“Your friendship is always appreciated,” she continues steadily, Dorian’s dark eyes inscrutable. “And I should not have snapped at you for caring.”

He holds her gaze for a moment and then smiles, barely a crease at the corners of her eyes but clear as day.

“If this is the sort of treatment I get afterwards, I must try to get on your bad side more often.”

“Don’t push your luck,” she says, and when he barks out a laugh something loosens in her chest.

“Apology accepted,” he decides, crisp and light, and he sketches a bow. “Shall we?”

“I suppose I must sooner or later.”

“Oh, I don’t know about ‘must,’” Dorian says carefully, and Bull claps her on the shoulder with surprising gentleness.

“We can always stay,” he suggests. “No harm done.”

“Thank you,” she says to both of them, and means it. “But I’m alright.”

She’s certain they share a look behind her as she leaves, but she pays it no mind. At this point she’s fairly sure they’ve earned the right to shared glances.

Outside, the keep twinkles with the light hundreds of little fires, candles and braziers and torches and watchfires lighting up as the sun dips below the hills and night falls. Soldiers and scouts drift toward the tavern for a well-earned drink at the end of a long day, and the cool evening breeze wicks away the heat of the day. Across the yard, her eyes find Josephine. The woman meets her gaze steadily, and in the heartbeat while Vesper does not know what to do she inclines her head.

Vesper breathes deep and full and returns the gesture. Apologies will be made. Hurts will be healed. Mistakes will be smoothed over. It all continues, no matter what. Most days that is a heavy burden; today it feels more a promise. The sun will rise, and they will start again, and she will do better, and eventually it will be okay.

She can live with okay.

 


End file.
